Gamma Nine (Book One) by Christi Smit Page A

there to make your survival difficult, had you
stayed longer, bigger and nastier enemies would be introduced every
hour, making survival even more difficult.”
    “But, what
about the timer and the briefing said there were only a few
hostiles in the Labyrinth.”
    “All a facade
Corporal, when the timer reached zero you would have been notified
to exit, if you were still alive that is. The last few hours in
there would have been very dangerous.” Locke walked over to the
weapon racks, unclipping a Kicker with many custom additions to it,
a giant Nova launcher attached underneath its non-standard long
barrel. “I myself survived only because I killed the big hostiles
first, once I ran out of ammo the smaller ones were easier to deal
with.”
    “Where would I
have received more ammo? I never saw any of the caches.”
    “There were no
caches, it is all a trick, the creator’s mechanism might have been
genius, but the true nature of it was evil. It was meant to trick
you in every way possible, lie to you, give you false hope, and
then try to kill you. That room, with all of the moving platforms,
there are many other traps throughout it. False floors, spike
traps, flame traps, crushing traps and even traps that would
release more hostiles.”
    “What about the
first two I killed, are there bigger ones than those in the
Labyrinth?”
    “Ah yes, those
two, we had never seen that before, they had somehow broken out of
the Labyrinth, the area you killed them in was nothing but an
abandoned medical wing. It was abandoned when the creator of that
facility acquired it to build his diabolical machine.” Locke
started loading his Kicker with bullets from a nearby ammunition
case. “So you see, when the timer reaches zero you would have
succeeded, or failed if you never saw the timer reach zero.”
    “It was a lie,
to try and kill me?”
    “Yes, and if it
didn’t then you would be a Titan. Now the situation has changed,
and other things will try and kill you during the rest of your
training.” Locke finished loading his Kicker, clipping it to his
back as he walked to the door leading to another part of the
Hyperion’s armoury. “First. Combat training against real opponents,
meaning...us.” He jabbed his armoured thumb into his chest,
disappearing through the door.
    The rest of the
squad took that as a cue of some kind, all of them followed Locke,
brandishing their weapons as they walked past Christian.
    Not good,
Christian thought, not good at all.
    “Where’s
Pyoter?” Christian asked the squad as they walked down a corridor
towards another room in the bowels of the Hyperion. He was
obviously missing from the squad, his size making it difficult for
him to ever be a hide and seek champion.
    “Warming up, we
will get to him later.” Xander replied over his shoulder, walking a
few paces in front of Christian.
    They reached
the new room, Locke entering first, Christian last. Christian could
not believe his eyes at first, switching to his tactical sight with
a word. It was not a room, looking more like a gladiatorial pit
from old Earth than any training arena he had heard of.
    Bare-metal
obstacles littered the centre of the pit, built at random angles
and random heights. Some were hip height, others as tall as two
Titans, their construction creating many different firing angles
and cover positions. The pit was as large as a civilian freighter’s
docking bay, with thirty foot tall solid metal walls surrounding
it. Viewing galleries looked down at the entire pit and all of its
obstacles.
    Christian could
make out a few figures looking on from the galleries above them,
most of them probably there to see the Titans in action, others
just for the sport of it.
    He could not
see their faces, nor hear their cheering. It made him feel like a
gladiator, a gladiator about to face the lions. Christian silently
wished for lions instead of his current opponents. Lions, or
creatures of the same ferocity, he could beat, the